


Requiem

by afalsebravado



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Feels, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Obsession, Other: See Story Notes, POV Kylo Ren, Possessive Behavior, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, The Force Ships It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-19 03:18:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13695768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afalsebravado/pseuds/afalsebravado
Summary: "Somehow there seems to be endless time in this moment, a scene removed from the narrative, stretching without boundary, and it should be so obviously spent memorizing each freckle on her cheek, every lash on her eyelid, and every single curve that makes up the shape of her lips."--A companion to Tactical Surrender Chapter 10.





	Requiem

**Author's Note:**

  * For [destinies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/destinies/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Tactical Surrender](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13183992) by [destinies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/destinies/pseuds/destinies). 



> This fic is dedicated to Chel ([destinies](http://archiveofourown.org/users/destinies/pseuds/destinies)) and was gifted to her on Valentine's day.
> 
> It is essentially fanfic of her amazing fic - [Tactical Surrender](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13183992/chapters/30156201). If you haven't read it, go. Go now. Do not waste any time!
> 
> I also need to give an extra special thank you to Vee and Kami without whom I surely would have perished. <3 Thank you.

      It’s peculiar how in moments of grave importance, when reactions and decisions should be made at lightning-strike speed, that time seems to slow to a crawling pace. How one can become strangely fixated on the texture of skin, or the curve of a lip, or the way eyelashes lay against the top of a cheek. So little thought is given to actual action; it either occurs by reflex or falls away completely. A true paradigm of fight or flight. Yet somehow there seems to be endless time in this moment, a scene removed from the narrative, stretching without boundary, and it should be so obviously spent memorizing each freckle on her cheek, every lash on her eyelid, and every single curve that makes up the shape of her lips.

      Then again, only one thing is certain: nothing lasts forever.  

      There is a sensation like a _lurch_ , like the way a ship seems to lean back before jumping forward into hyperspace, and suddenly time snaps back as if it had been an elastic stretched too far.  Everything is chaos. There are people and droids all around him, scrambling, rushing in and out of the scene before he can even think to pay them any mind. A long, loud, alarm is sounding. A klaxon that shorts out his hearing for a split second after every blaring tone.  But he can’t afford to pay any of it any mind. He is singularly focused on his sole task:

       Keep. Her. Alive.

      The body is an imperfect machine.  It’s a thought heavily influenced by one of the last of hers; how the pumps and bellows and electrical signals must all work in tandem to keep the body alive.  How the failure of any one of those parts can mean failure of the whole machine.  There are no redundant systems, no failsafes.  And then there is the Force – connecting and flowing through all parts, never interfering, but always present, like coupled links in a long chain linking body to spirit to universe.  It’s never quite been like that for him, at least… not for a long time.  For him the Force is the chain he wraps round his hand, brandished as both leash and weapon, a choke collar around his foes, brass knuckles on his fist.

       But now, with that same hand hovering, shaking, above her chest, he brandishes it in a new way.  A way to give life, or at least sustain it, rather than a way to extinguish it. He pulls at every strand of the Force he can, pulling it down around him and through him, ripping it from the grand tapestry of  _ everything _ where it lives. He was taught it was limitless, abundant, the one resource in the universe that could never be depleted. Yet somehow, in this moment, he fears for the first time there will not be enough of it.

      A droid approaches in his peripheral vision, and he hears the clipped synthetic voice say something about a ventilator. The thought of placing her life in the hands of some _ thing _ else spills a cold dread throughout his body. No, he must remain tethered to her, he is certain of this. Without breaking his focus, he shakes his head and redoubles his efforts to keep her breathing. He must be sweating from the sheer exertion of it. He can feel moisture on his face, and sees it dripping down to stain her clothes, each droplet darkening the fabric by shades.

      The incongruity of it is that he doesn’t feel at all overheated or warm. He feels only cold, the fear numbing his fingertips and toes, drawing what remaining warmth he has left to the core of his body. Stoking the normally raging embers there to keep them alight as he pours everything he can into her body, laid out beneath him. He fears it won’t be enough (it’s never been enough, though, has it? For Skywalker, for Snoke– no… he pushes the thought down) and the treacherous doubt slides a hand of its own up around his throat, threatening to choke him.

      He can’t. Choke. He can’t allow that. He’s spent the last three years whittling that fight or flight response to a sharp point so that only fight remains. The concealed shiv he carries that keeps him alive in this prison of his own making. He knows he can never turn and run, never escape. The moment he tries, someone will be there with a knife of their own, ready to plunge it into his back and take what they think has always belonged to them. There is no turning back.

      His mind flickers back to Starkiller Base, to the memories buried there, and it’s as if he can feel his side throbbing with the burn of a blaster bolt once more. Good. He can draw on the pain, even the ghosted memory of it, draw more power and strength. But then, unbidden, comes the memory of Han Solo’s face, and the sensation of fingers - warm, calloused, familiar -  touching his skin. Suddenly his hand shakes and his breath hitches and the grasp of doubt tightens, tightens.  A strangled sound crawls up this throat, determined to escape, a desperate sob which he tries to swallow.

       But he can’t.

       The sound of true despair fills the room. It dawns on him that the droplets falling from his face are in the shape of tears, not sweat as he would have himself believe. This was not the death he pictured for her — it is not the one she deserves. He was to bestow that death upon her, like he had bestowed it upon his father that day on Starkiller: an honorable and personal death. One that was levied with respect and purpose and ceremony. One that was earned. He is the only one worthy of giving it to her, just as she herself would have been the only one worthy of ending his own life.

      Or so he told himself.  He had tried to picture her execution when he began to set the preparations into motion. He tried to imagine the spectacle of it, the satisfaction in igniting his saber, knowing it would find home inside of her. But the gratification wouldn’t materialize. The images in his mind left him feeling hollow and bleak. If only she had accepted his proposal, if only she had seen what he had seen — a future where they stood side by side, the galaxy laid out before them.

      Instead, she continued to defy him, and so forced his hand.  He had shut her out, walled her off from the anguish settling in beneath his ribcage. And because of that, because he was so focused on keeping his emotions locked away, he had missed the cues that would have alerted him to the assassination plot unfolding around him. Now he kneels over her on the floor, begging the Dark  _ and _ the Light to save her, his arm shaking with the combined effort of keeping her alive and the rising panic at watching her die.

      He stares at his hand as if he can somehow will the tremor in it away, but he already knows it to be impossible. He feels himself coming undone. The truth of what has been building within since the day she surrendered herself to him is starting to break loose, shaking and swirling inside of him like a storm battering the walls of a building. Forcing rivets from their holes, buckling beams and blowing in windows in a barrage of glass. The force of it is unlike anything he has ever known. The air is knocked from his chest like gale force wind stealing his breath and his vision blurs, obscured by tears borne from anger and sadness and— and fear.

      Fear of losing the one person in the entire galaxy whom he—

      Whom he loves.

_ Oh.  _

      He loves her.

       The realization cuts through his defenses like the ship that sheared the Supremacy in two. He loses his grip on the Force and her lungs deflate in one last exhale before the whirr of the ventilator picks up the weight of the task. The medical staff swoop in around him and lift her onto a gurney, wheeling her out of the room and racing towards the medical bay. He’s left alone in the room with only upturned chairs, broken glass, and a traitorous bottle of wine. He stares at the space on the floor where her body lay and his shoulders heave as he feels the pain of her absence. He has to put a hand out in front of himself to keep from pitching forward. The other goes to his eyes, covering them, his gloved thumb and fingers pressing in at his temples.

      The alarms have long since been silenced, so the cold, hard walls echo the only sound that falls from his lips.

       “Rey.”


End file.
